Saturday April 1, 2006
F: 10:30 p.m. Dr. Jung, I realize with great joy that I can discuss your books and your works with you, as I have so long wished I could! I just, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections read your statement how hard it is for most people to live close to the unconscious. Is that what I am doing, or do you mean something different?
CGJ: Well, you know, one means different things depending on who is reading, and when in his life one reads it! At this time in your life it is open to you in a way that it was not, just a short time ago.
To live in close proximity – on neighborly terms, let us say – to the unconscious is to be very clear, very transparent, to the promptings of the spirit. It means, to not allow the conscious mind – the ego-bound mind – to tyrannize over the entire being, as if only it were the arbiter, the judge, and only its needs were to be considered and fulfilled. The conscious self, unbalanced by knowledge of the unconscious, easily comes to think itself the only thing in the world. You think “autistic” and although this is somewhat extravagant it is not without suggestive value.
To live on good terms with the unconscious is to live in the perpetual awareness of not being the center even of your own world, let alone the other world! And this people fear. Their external life already leaves them feeling insufficient and unnecessary. To add to that the feeling that internally, too, one is only a hanger-on, a bit player rather than the starring role, may be too much to bear.
In reality of course it is not that the conscious self, the ego self, is at all unnecessary. Without the ego self the soul would have no locus! Yet it may appear to the unprepared just that way.
You yourself live much less often on good terms with the surrounding unconscious than you sometimes believe, for often enough you close your access – as is your right – and find yourself isolated, directionless and depressed. This is the inevitable result of cutting oneself off from the mainsprings of one’s being. Yet, other times you do lead a more symbolic, undefined life in connection with you know not what. I would say that you do this working from an instinct that leads you to do much as I did in the tower, reducing the din of your contemporaries as your friend Henry Thoreau also did. This is a good thing to do, if not done in imitation because someone did it but because they sparked you with an idea which itself inspired you. Thus, building fires answers a need in you, and so heating your little house [Dave’s house on Creekside, where I lived four years, which was heated entirely by woodstove] was a comfort and a quiet joy, rather than work as others would have found it. No TV, no radio except at odd moments, also reduces the distractions of the immediate moment. You must watch your appetite for the internet lest it overpower your central solitude but it does serve as a corrective, for you still need connection. In this, though, you are acting as intermediary rather than consumer, and this too is better. Caesar never read a newspaper – but if they had existed, would have. Napoleon read newspapers and would have listened to radio. Mussolini listened to radio and would have monitored television. It is balance, not any particular detail or prohibition, that is the goal.
F: Thank you. Assuming that this is not an annoyance to you, I look forward to asking many of the questions I have had, reading your books and re-reading them. Or – anyway – Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
CGJ: If you pose honest sincere questions, they will be welcomed and answered. For the frivolous and dishonest, the dead have no time, nor for the self-deceiving, the self-flattering, the manipulators of others or the fat-headed logic choppers. Go in peace.
F: And you.
“You yourself live much less often on good terms with the surrounding unconscious than you sometimes believe, for often enough you close your access – as is your right – and find yourself isolated, directionless and depressed. This is the inevitable result of cutting oneself off from the mainsprings of one’s being.”
Good morning Frank. Great session. And this quote sums up for me exactly where I am in life, have been in life, and why. Have you gotten any sense from your sessions why “the game of Life” is set up such that it’s even possible to cut oneself off from the mainsprings of being? Why isn’t it as reflexive as breathing or digestion, an integral part of the human package?
I’ve never thought about it too much, but i suppose it is so that we can employ our free will and develop who we are and really want to be. It isn’t handed to us on a plate, because what you work for, is yours; what is given to you is a loan until you make it yours. If we came in, knowing, how likely is it that we would become truly seated in any one life’s viewpoint? And i take it, that’s the point of it, to develop one coherent being out of whatever strands we begin with. That’s my horseback guess, anyway.
Martha,
I perceive your questions as personal expressions of the big question for everyone: “What is the meaning of life?” … “Why am I here?” I fully agree with Frank’s response, and wanted to add that (for me) Rita’s words give the ‘larger’ context.
I am a compound being, composed of many . My work is to reconcile and ‘converge’ those pieces into a stable whole, more and more useful to myself, my larger self, and the Universe. I do that by listening to some parts, not listening to other parts … and that ‘listening’ extends to the external world. CGJ speaks in this session about listening to the outside world less and to my inside/unconscious-self more; my practice encourages that.
Is it “as reflexive as breathing … “? Not a bit; all of us humans know that at times it’s hard, painful, scary work; I like the conversation about earning ‘campaign ribbons’ in the boot camp of life! It’s not yet ‘reflexive’ because that’s what us 3D’ers are here for, to grow that connection with our non-3D selves. Given what Rita (and TGU) says, I have to believe that work and effort is important.
I like that big ‘in the sky’ message and in in quiet moments ‘live’ there. But what propels me through each day is the inescapable fact: I’m here, in physical life; I might as well get on with it!
Jim
Wonderful “Second conversation”, I can totally identify with Martha’s observation with regard to my own life. At one point, I was questioning if all the suffering and chaos was nothing more than a waste. A good friend of mine pointed out that nothing is wasted. Those moments of illusory separation were just that…with the understanding that separation and trial were a necessary ingredients to the whole that is used for our development. That did not mean I was not to re-experience the separation and moments of depression. But, I now had a string to guide me out of the Minotaur’s maze.
Thanks for sharing your conversations w/ Dr. Jung w/ us, Frank!
I wonder if we don’t so much “cut ourselves off”, as to willfully forget (again, “as is our right” w/ “free will” in operation in 3D) to such a degree it seems as if “it’s just little me, in my little boat, rowing furiously around in some stormy seas” (a frequent analogy I’ve used when feeling esp. depressed/anxious about “greater meaning”)? “Closing access” to the Greater/non-3D has a feeling-sense, to me, of “tuning my personal radio/transceiver dial off the ‘Band of Uplink’ (to the ‘mainsprings of being’)”, vs. a true “cutting off”; maybe I’m just fiddling w/ terminology here…
It certainly is painful (for me) to “forget”, but this has led to an almost ceaseless asking of questions/reading of material related to this topic (I also feel the “need” to add in some meditation time, although I do a sort of “automatic meditation” when I take naps). I also think/hope that my own wrestling w/ the ideas, plus a balanced following of my inclinations as to physically-oriented activities, be it art, gardening, or flying, is leading this “me of strands” to become more “coherent”.
And Martha, I think this “uplink to our wellsprings of being” is “part of the package”, and is “reflexive”; at least I’ve found this to be the case when I fall asleep! Even after a wretchedly anxious-feeling day, I can drop to sleep, and explore a very rich dream-life, and awaken refreshed. During sleep is when I “drop the oars” and “let the current carry me”, leading to refreshment. And, I feel, as hard as it is sometimes, I’m not willing (nor can I!) just get to the old Budweiser ad: “Why ask why?”, become a “Joe Bag o’ Donuts” (a “borrowed” expression from an NDE account), and just be entertained by the mass media, or “extreme” activities/sports. As much as I’d feel this would be “easier, more comfortable”, once I started wondering, and asking questions, I could not (and will not!) shut that door again, as uncomfortable as it is sometimes.
My “thing” now seems to be achieving more of a “balance”, for “discomfort” has become “the rule” for me, for a number of years; I certainly hope this “forging by fire” is useful (to 3D “me”, to non-3D “Me”, to The Overall…) But, in spite of this discomfort, I haven’t let it shut me down entirely, in my interactions w/ 3D (went flying for the first time in four months yesterday; rediscovering “the view from above”, literally, was sheer joy!)
Just the view from my steed, on that “long trail a-winding”…
Glad these conversations are continuing!
Craig
Can’t recall which English poet said it, but “sleep knits the raveled sleeve of care,” and perhaps that’s why — it restores our contact Upstairs.
Frank, I am so grateful for you.
Thanks. I am equally grateful to have a community to help meexplore these things.
CGJ’s last paragraph contrasted with the first session you posted yesterday comes across as both judging and condemning, which is what he was cautioning us against. Am I misinterpreting?
When you point it out, i can see how you might take it that way, but i had never thought so. I took him to be describing the right and wrong attitudes one could bring to the task of talking to the discarnate. I rather enjoyed “fat-headed logic choppers,” myself. Perhaps this should be looked at as an example of the fact that discernment need not be bland, but can be quite tart when need be. Now, if he had been referring to someone in particular, i’d have to agree that. yes, he had fallen into condemnation.
“Fat-headed logic chopper” is a label I will strive to not wear! Ha Ha. Not a lot of fuzz associated with that description.